Harassment in fandom needs to be taken seriously – guest post by Lamar.

by Patch O'Furr

A couple of weeks ago I put out a call via Twitter, helpfully reposted by some high profile people, to see if I could get any first hand reports of how Convention and Security staff handled issues at Conventions.

I had exactly three replies in total. One saying that they had once reported someone vaping inside the convention space. One security staffer who was unable to discuss any details but expressed that incidents of harassment do happen, and have to be handled correctly and with care. And finally, another con staffer who accused me of being on a “fishing expedition” and using rumours to ascribe bad faith.

And outside of twitter I talked to a young member of the fandom, who continues to receive targeted convention related harassment. I’m going to call him Adrian, but that’s not his real name. Adrian shared copies of the messages. They include slurs and rants, including for instance “You ATTENTION seeking c***”. Adrian received this harassment, for speaking out about what happened to him at a convention some years ago. I ask him to talk about it.

It started when he complimented someone on their fursuit at a convention.
Then some drinks.
And an invite to a hotel room to party.
And then being pressured into non-consenting sex.
Or to use the correct word, rape.

The next morning, Adrian had to leave the convention. Maybe if he’d stayed, he’d have gathered the courage to report it. But instead Adrian tried to put it behind him, after all surely it was just a mistake.

“I didn’t tell the staff because I thought the guy cared about me,” Adrian tells me, “Then after the con ended he told me that I needed to get [psychiatric] help because being trans is wrong.”

It wasn’t till later, when Adrian felt able to talk about what had happened. And that’s when Adrian started getting defensive messages, recounting a different version of events from those Adrian remembered.

Which quickly escalated to harassment from multiple people, all aimed at trying to keep Adrian quiet. “One of their friends contacted me and harassed me, I blocked their account and they went onto a fake one to continue harassing me.”

Adrian is a victim of the circle of silence that I fear has set in to the fandom. There seems to be a great amount of social pressure on not ‘creating drama’. What little is seen is in rumours passed around social media, and the occasional flare up when administrative action is taken against someone who made an accusation on a furry site. It would be incredibly naive to think that there’s such a small amount of harassment to warrant not having anyone willing to go on the record with me about it. Even if I hadn’t known of Adrian’s story, or multiples like it. I am deeply concerned that the Furry Fandom has developed a toxic culture where we don’t talk about harassment, because it might make the fandom look bad.

– Lamar

Notes from Patch:

Speaking of inaction, Lamar let me see a concept that has some attention in fandoms, the Missing Stair.

Here’s a story about BLFC 2017. It started when the below complaint got traffic on Furry Twitter and Telegram:

There was no ID but the talk led me to notice that guy in the hall, so I got the badge name that was being sought. A little while later he was wandering a public area and going slightly over the line of physical respect by smacking stranger’s butts with a ball, so security kicked him out of the room and I got video. A tip connected all that to the original complaint.

I have no idea how they handled it from there. That’s something they keep private for good reasons, I think. The guy seemed chastened by being kicked out and I would rather not do shaming by sharing video without a compelling reason (which would likely only come from people directly involved). I’m not the police or con security, and I saw evidence of someone lacking friends or social skills. Basically, a lonely guy who wasn’t much of a threat, making its own punishment in a small way. (Same for Furry Raiders who were hiding like losers with a little gaggle of “bodyguards” to go anywhere.)

The original discussion on Twitter caused action to connect the ID and a record in case complaints repeat. I would take that as a pretty good result and a little positive sign about the goodness of the community. Be like that.

Here’s the alt-furries other side: “don’t just do something, sit there!” For the real fandom: if you see anyone acting like Adrian’s harassers, don’t let it go.

2 Responses to “Harassment in fandom needs to be taken seriously – guest post by Lamar.”

So i hope that now ppl can understand what some furry is in it.
I met a furry dude which i see first time. And he tried to rape me but he’s fail ‘coz i bite him. And he kick me out from his house. That’s the reason why i dont trust furries anymore. With some exeptions ofc.
And, as i know, in furry conventions some just initiated furry suffer from another one, which try (and mostly successfully) to rape them.
And what? They say “Yep, we rape them, especially ‘cubs’. And they after that want it at they own will, ha”.
Taht’s one more reason why i’m alone now. I just can’t find someone who are not a slut (i mean both position, doesn’t matter who raise his own tail), ‘coz almost all furries which i know think that it’s normal to yiff/being yiffed with anyone who agree (and even NOT agree).

This is not a defense, but a lot of people don’t seem to realize what they’re doing constitutes harassment, but is perfectly reasonable behavior.

Thus the pushback when they’re told they’re harassing people.

That’s not a defense, just an observation I’ve made over the last few years both as a regular user or attendee, and as a staffer.

This does not mean to imply, in any way, we as a community and especially those on staff should be absolved of responsibility of handling these behaviors properly.

And no, “Go deal with it yourself” is not a responsible way to handle these reports. Staff should never encourage attendees or users to escalate the situation. I have rarely seen it work out well.

Now, for more mundane stuff like a guy playing music too loudly, I would expect someone to ask them – politely – to turn down the music before going to a staff member. But as a staff member, that is not a required step before I can take a complaint about loud music seriously – and I fully respect the right of someone to make a complaint when they do not feel comfortable confronting the issue themselves.

I do know it can be frustrating to get people to talk about harassment issues, too. Goodness knows all sorts of behaviors keep going on when staff for events would put a stop to it immediately, simply because the staff aren’t informed. “I dont’ want to cause a scene” “I don’t want to trouble anybody” “They won’t believe me”. “They’ll think I’m the one causing a problem.”

I’m reminded of a zillion years ago, when FA got hacked and a bunch of notes got released. One of the notes involved a user asking Dragoneer for advice; she felt that another user had been pressuring people into having sex with him and she was wondering if it would be a good idea to post a journal about it on FA. Dragoneer said it wasn’t a good idea, because the user’s friends and fanclub would swarm over it and attack her for it.

And when the note got leaked… the user’s friends and fanclub swarmed all over the user, harassing her. What do you know.

I could probably give some more specific examples, but memories fading with time and keeping stuff told in confidence actually in confidence prevent me from doing so.

I do like the move the fandom is making in encouraging people to report and talk about things, and letting people with authority handle it. We’ve got a long way to go, but I like to think we’re heading in the right direction.